Canadian Coming-of-Age Drama '10 1/2' Wins Mannheim

Audience Awards Go to "Eva and Lola" and "Hold Me Tight"

COLOGNE, Germany – The Canadian film 10 ½ from director Daniel Grou has won the top prize of the Mannheim-Heidelberg Innternational film festival. The coming-of-age story focuses on a 10-year-old juvenile delinquent and his guardian at a halfway house.

10 ½ debuted at the Montreal Film Festival in October and is on release in Quebec. Mad Men World Distribution is handling world sales.

The festival’s audience awards went to Argentinean drama Eva and Lola from director Sabrina Farji and to school drama Hold Me Tight from Denmark’s Kaspar Munk. Primer Plano Film Group is selling Eva and Lola worldwide. NonStop Sales holds rights to Hold Me Tight.

Mannheim’s international jury singled out another Canadian drama, Act of Dishonour by Nelofer Pazira for praise. The jury gave the feature, in which a Canadian camera team visits a war-torn Afghan village, a special mention for depicting “the complex realities of war and the difficult interaction between film making and people’s lives.” World sales are with Toronto’s eOne Films.

The High Life, a female prison drama from Chinese director Zhao Dayong, took Mannheim’s director’s nod, the Rainer Werner Fassbinder prize. The High Life also won the FIPRESCI international critics’ prize. World sales agent is Lantern Films.

The Festival’s international jury gave a special award to Turkish kitchen sink drama Black and White from first-timer Ahmet Boyacioglu, which is being sold worldwide by Akman Film.

Mannheim also honored Swedish actress Alicia Vikander for her “extraordinary performance” in Lisa Langseth’s Pure. Vikander plays Katarina, a woman who draws the strength to endure hardship from a deep love of classical music. Pure also took top honors from the jury of German cinema owners. TrustNordisk holds world sales rights for the feature.

The 59th Mannheim-Heidelberg International Film Festival wrapped up Nov. 21.